music is my parachute

[devi]

BeeCDs and dinner makings
Originally uploaded by bluedevi

Yesterday was a bleak sort of day, despite the crisp autumn sunshine. I was out of sorts with work, and apprehensive about money, and kept veering towards the dangerous here-be-dragons shores of "what's the point?" in relation to my non-work projects, and in general it was the sort of day where the whole mechanism of living seems a bit much and you just want to be asleep. It was like my brain had been running for too long without a reboot and now was full of cruft, memory leaks and zombie processes, and desperately in need of a defrag.

(Someone will now tell me I need a different operating system.)

But I got home to find a parcel of music and goodwill from beecd, put the first of the three CDs on and started cooking lasagne while waiting for Dan to come round, and there was a moment when I just stood back and looked at the objects on the counter and thought it was ridiculous to be glum when I was this absurdly lucky.

I'm not supposed to talk about the CDs in detail till everyone has got theirs, so we can all listen to them without preconceptions, but the two I've heard so far have been fantastic.

So it seems like a good time to do jinty's earworm meme...


The Clash, This Is England, while walking down the Cowley Road to Tesco. In particular, I've got my motorcycle jacket but I'm walking all the time.

Yesterday morning I woke up with a rather good mashup earworm. Part was this bit of Parabola by Tool: twirling round in this familiar parabola/spinning weaving round each new experience/recognise this as a holy gift and celebrate this chance to be alive and breathing (Tool are weird. Sound of a thrash-metal band who love to mess with time signatures, lyrics of a wide-eyed blissed-out hippy. At least on this album). The other part was As Above So Below by Klaxons: the dance of the cosmos shows/as above so below. Totally different genres, but they both make me think of geometry on a massive scale.

I got Horse And I by Bat For Lashes months ago on one of ultraruby's YouSendIts, and I knew people were saying she was a bit Kate Bush/Tori Amos/Björk so you'd think I'd have gone mad for her right away. But no, I listened to it a couple of times, it made little impression and I forgot about it. It smouldered away in the depths of my iTunes until a couple of weeks ago, when it leapt out and mugged me. It's gorgeous, and it keeps earworming me with It sang to me, this is yours to wear/your choice is made, there's no turning back.

(Crikey, look at me with my head full of Mercury Prize nominees. I am Ms Average, the woman on the Clapham omnibus. And I don't even listen to the radio much.)

Up On Hill Farm by Hamilton Vs Hamilton is my theme for Truck. I didn't hear it there, but it's on the Truck CD, and is actually about Truck, and it's a floaty acoustic thing which sounds as if it's drifting across a field, and captures the mood of those two days perfectly.

I routinely get earwormed by old hymns from Charismatic prayer meetings. They come up from the depths of my memory like bubbles of marsh gas. There's the one that goes I have decided to follow Jesus, I have decided to follow Jesus, I have decided to follow Jesus, no turning back, no turning back. Round and round and round. Hmm, bit of a no-turning-back theme emerging there. And the one about the Apocalypse that ends We shall reign with him forever, men and angels shout and sing, all dominion shall be given to the family of the King. Um, yes. I'm going to count all that sort of thing as a single earworm.

And the last is another oldie: after Dan and I had a conversation about 80s fantasy movies which ended with us watching Legend (oh dear! Unicorns! Tiny, tiny wee Tom Cruise!), I got earwormed by Dance Magic Dance from Labyrinth. And also the "Through dangers untold, and hardships unnumbered, I have fought my way here to the castle..." speech.

I'm inevitably going to remember many much weirder ones as soon as I post this.


I hardly ever tag people for memes, but I want to know about other people's earworms. So, with the usual caveats about no obligation to do this, I tag, hmmm... undyingking, puritybrown, inannajones, braisedbywolves, miss_newham, parallelgirl and minnesattva. And anyone else who wants to, obviously.

Comments

[paste.livejournal.com]

i got my beeCDs yesterday too, yay!

and i played magic dance at platform last night which made loads of people go yay!

[miss-newham.livejournal.com]

I'll do it, but not till I've finished my third application form of the day! But because I am a great detective, I think I've got your beecd, and I like it...

[bluedevi.livejournal.com]

Saying nothing, but I can see how it might be easy for a sleuth to figure mine out!

[miss-newham.livejournal.com]

Well, for a while I thought I might have made it, as there were three songs I listen to regularly in a row!

I forgot to respond to your meme, didn't I? Mainly because the last week I've had little but Ewan's Poptimism set stuck in my head. But recently I've been getting 'Another sunny day' by Belle And Sebastian a lot, as both my local pubs love B&S and play them whenever I go in; I recently purchased 'Feels like I'm in love' by Kelly Marie as she wouldn't stop being cheerful in my head; and I sing 'A mouse lived in a windmill' at least once a day.

[bluedevi.livejournal.com]

Hee! A windmill with a mouse in, and he wasn't grousin'.

I'm not sure you do have my BeeCD now, as I can't think of any run of three songs on it that you're likely to listen to a lot! It was all very electronic...

[miss-newham.livejournal.com]

Ah, I could well be mistaken then and won't join the CID just yet.

[cosmolinguist]

Dear lord, I never get tagged for memes! I shall do my best, though mostly I've been listening to the radio and Andrew's mp3s. Still this is easier than the other meme I was recently asked to do (never rains but pours!) which is to list some number of weird things about me. Not fair! I'm completely not weird! :D

[bluedevi.livejournal.com]

But the annoying jingles are fascinating to me! I'm slightly miffed that when I sat down to do the meme I could mostly only think of decent songs I was happy to have in my head, rather than the mishmash of ancient advertisements from RTE in the 80s that I often have stuck on endless loop in there...

Sometimes I wonder if I'm the only one who remembers particular ads, or cartoon theme tunes.

[paste.livejournal.com]

you're definitely not... i've been singing this one in my head for so long now that i had to find it on youtube. probably you won't remember it though,as it's from foreign shores!

[braisedbywolves.livejournal.com]

All my earworms are sub judice IE off the beecds! Which reminds me...

[the-elyan.livejournal.com]

I usually wake up with earworms, and manage to suppress them as the day goes on. Can't remember what's today's was, though I quashed it with Run Like Hell, which destroys most things.

If the weather holds, I might walk up to Godstow Lock on Sunday, as I've never been there, and have lunch at the Trout. Will prob be in town for a bit latyer. Would be good to see you if you're about.

[bluedevi.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah - I should be about on Sunday at the time you mentioned. Coffee?

[the-elyan.livejournal.com]

That would be good. I shall let you know more of when and where I'll be when I have some idea myself. Will depend on the weather a fair bit...

[marnameow.livejournal.com]

I once tried to keep a track of my earworms (and more interestingly, where they came from) for a day. The list got very long, and mostly was very predictable.

[cleanskies.livejournal.com]

Aie! Dance magic dance!

(I've always thought "slap that baby, make him free" a vey dodgy line)

[paste.livejournal.com]

even dodgier than david bowie's codpiece?

Labyrinth soundtrack

[mzdt.livejournal.com]

http://viagemusical.blogspot.com/2007/03/labyrinth.html

disturbing to see something mentioned on the internet twice in one day in different places...

[verlaine.livejournal.com]

It's heartworms I get, not earworms. Currently I've got one Tessa Begley playing on loop, you may be pleased to hear!

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

It's tapeworms I get. Although not at the moment, because my tape deck isn't plumbed in.

[verlaine.livejournal.com]

Also, hello from Oxford! *waves*

Funny to be so geographically near to you again.